


Merry Christmas, You Miserable Bugger

by abetterfatethanwisdom



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Fluff, Knitting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 15:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2778170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abetterfatethanwisdom/pseuds/abetterfatethanwisdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The truth was, Draco was the most brilliant person he’d ever met and made him mad with passion and exasperation and   tenderness. He felt so much for Draco Malfoy, and since he was rubbish at talking about his feelings, he wanted to show him, somehow. Apparently with a scarf. A fucking scarf.<br/>Harry is having some last minute angst about his present for Draco.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merry Christmas, You Miserable Bugger

It was Christmas Eve, and the last thing Harry wanted to be doing was frantically finishing present wrapping, and yet, here he was. Every year, he promised himself he’s going to get it all done early, and every year, he found himself struggling with wrapping paper, covered in tape and swearing until he’s blue in the face. This year, however, he was determined to triumph. He had made a plan, see, and it was sure to go just right, leaving him cool, calm and collect-

“Oh, fuck this,” he exclaimed, throwing himself down on the bed, sending bits of paper and tinsel flying everywhere. This was useless. 

With a sigh of defeat, he sat up and mumbled a few charms. Within minutes, the presents had wrapped themselves, a little clumsily but with gusto Harry himself did not feel for the task. 

“Have you given up yet?” called a voice from the kitchen, with a touch of smugness.

“Oh ye of little faith.” Harry grumbled, choosing to ignore that Draco was, as always, infuriatingly correct.

“I don’t know why you insist each year on fussing the Muggle way,” his voice continued from the kitchen, mixed in with the clinking of cups and the gentle sigh of the kettle. “There’s no shame in a little help. Especially with your wrapping skills. In this particular situation, it’s a mercy to us all.”

Harry rolled his eyes at the jab and stuck out his tongue. It didn’t matter that Draco was in the other side of the flat, since Harry had barricaded himself in their bedroom. He figured the sentiment would be felt.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” he called back, attempting nonchalance as he shoved the presents into a bright pile and reached for the last gift, the one that he had ignored all day.

“Mmmhmm. Well, when you’re done being an illusive idiot, there’s tea for you.”

With a twinge of guilt, Harry called back his thanks and turned back to the task at hand- his present for Draco. He looked at the thing in his lap and wondered for what seemed like the millionth time what the hell he was thinking.

It all had started when Hermione had noticed his hands shaking after a particularly nasty bout of aches. Harry’s body has sustained a lot of unforeseen damage after the Final Battle- (“Dying will do that, I guess,” he had told himself, a little bitterly) - and he now suffered from the shakes frequently. They had only increased in the last few years post-war, and while he could cast Glamour charms to hide it, he could still feel the tremors deep in his bones and could never quite mask it in his hands. 

Hermione had been the first to see past his concealment a few months ago, when it started up with the cold. After a few pointless minutes where he insisted he was quite fine, no really, she got him to admit that the shaking increased when he was on edge or anxious, and was pretty constant in his life now. She had got that dangerous determined gleam in her eye and promised him a solution within the week, but when she had approached him with a pair of knitting needles and a ball of woolly yarn, he had thought himself on the wrong end of a practical joke. 

She explained that when she herself had taken up knitting fourth year, her projects for SPEW had helped her relax. “It’s a great outlet for stress!” she gushed, “and it might be good for you. It’s a visual marker of progress, which I’ve always found comforting. You can see all your work and how far you’ve come with things.” 

Harry did not want to knit. He want to keep ignoring his trembling hands and leave the crafting to Mrs. Weasley and Hermione and the folks who enjoyed it, thanks. And yet- Hermione looked so eager and proud of her ridiculous solution that he took the yarn and the needles and said he’d take a crack at it, just to humor her.

But as it turned out, he actually really liked it. There was something comforting about the gentle repetition of clicking needles and counting stitches, and it gave him something to do when a panic attack started threatening. It had taken him several frustrating attempts and a few months, but when he finally mastered keeping even tension and a basic knit and purl, he was absurdly pleased with himself.

That’s when the madness had started. Egged on by Hermione’s encouragement and a feverish sort of glee in being able to make lumpy knitted objects, Harry decided to make a present. Not just a present for anyone, mind you, but a Christmas present for his very fussy, very stylish boyfriend. 

He now groaned and flopped back dramatically onto the bed, feeling dread well up instead him. He should have taken the first failed hat as a sign, a sign that he should buy Draco the usually fancy sweater or potions theory books and just get on with things, but his Gryffindor stubbornness had reared its inconvenient head and made him stick with it.

He had abandoned the hat as a lost cause, seeing as it better resembled a wooly bowl, and decided on a scarf. Draco was always complaining about being cold, and London had been suffering through a nasty winter, so it seemed like the perfect solution. Nothing too difficult about a scarf, right? 

He looked down in despair at the lumpy object in his hand. He was so stupid. He was so stupid and it was Christmas Eve and doom was eminent.

You’re being ridiculous.It’s not bad at all! A voice that sounded suspiciously like Hermione’s sounded off in his subconscious. Trying to look objectively, he examined the scarf and ran his fingers over the ribbing and knots. It was by far the best thing he made, he had to admit. He had chosen a thick rib for the pattern, one that would layer nicely and keep its shape, and used thick, good wool as well. It had hardly any holes, and he had even cast a few charms on it to make it more useful. It wasn’t that bad.

It just … it felt woefully inadequate. He had been in love with Draco for a long time, and they’d lived together for the last 3 years. Draco was very stylish and very particular, and Harry wanted more than anything to woo him, to leave him speechless. Each Christmas, Harry managed to find pretty good gifts and Draco always seemed pleased, but he was so damn thoughtful and managed to find Harry the perfect presents effortlessly. It’s not a competition, he had to constantly remind himself, embarrassed, but he realized he didn’t want to win Christmas or anything ridiculous like that. Harry just wanted to make Draco as happy as he himself was each time they looked at each other. 

The truth was, Draco was the most brilliant person he’d ever met and made him mad with passion and exasperation and tenderness. He felt so much for Draco Malfoy, and since he was rubbish at talking about his feelings, he wanted to show him, somehow. Apparently with a scarf. A fucking scarf.

He was broken out of his miserable state by a soft rap at the door. “Are you quite alright in there?” Draco called.

“Er, yeah!” Harry answered, sitting up fast and sending some of the presents soaring off the bed. “Just wrapping up.”

“Oh my god.” Harry could hear the amusement and despair in Draco’s voice at his accidental. pun. “That was horrible.”

“It was, believe it or not, an accident.” Harry grumbled, feeling grouchy. It was a horrible pun, just like his horrible present. 

It’s Draco’s fault, really, he thought desperately. If he wasn’t so fucking beautiful and tasteful, Harry wouldn’t have to be worrying so much over his present.

“Well, hurry, won’t you? You’re abandoning me out here all on my own and it’s Christmas. That’s quite rude of you.”

He ignored the second twinge of guilt and called back, “Just a mo’, ok? You’re so impatient.”

“That’s hilarious, coming from you. I’m giving you ten minutes.” 

Panic surged in Harry’s chest as Draco’s slippered feet retreated, and he sat up and examined the scarf one last time before attempting to wrap it. To his horror, he found a loose stitch running down the middle, creating a sizable hole. Well, if he couldn’t fix his poorly thought out gift, he could at least fix the run. Grabbing his wand, he cast a charm to keep the yarn from unraveling further and pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. “Accio darning needle.” All he heard was a distant rattling. “Where the fuck is it?” he grumbled, leaving the scarf on the bed and turning to their wardrobe. The rattling was coming from underneath, where he had apparently hid his crafting tin in a stroke of genius so Draco wouldn’t run across it. 

He reached blindly under the wardrobe, the rattling only intensifying when he cast another Accio. Was it stuck? He got on all fours and tried to shove his face under to look, arse in the air and dignity vanished. His hands were shaking again, and he still couldn’t get to the tin. Feeling grumpier by the moment, he was about to magically shove the damn wardrobe aside in desperation when he heard an amused chuckle behind him.

“Er, I’m certainly enjoying the view, love, but what the hell are you doing?”

Harry swore and tried to sit up, smacking his head in the process. Wincing in pain, he managed to sit up. “Ten minutes!” he sputtered, blinking away stars. “That wasn’t ten minutes!”

“I’m bored,” Draco said by way of explanation, offering him a hand up. His face was torn between amusement and concern for Harry, who accepted his hand and was now standing and rubbing at his sore head. “Sorry.”

“Wait!” Harry yelped, forgetting his bumped head with yet another surge of panic. He looked anxiously at the bed, hoping that his sad wooly heap of a present had somehow disappeared. I could probably Vanish it from here, he thought feverishly, until he saw that Draco had followed his gaze and was now looking at the bed, and his present, with curiosity. Well. Shit.

“I had thought you were done, er, wrapping up,” Draco remarked, a smile playing at his lips. He was still holding Harry’s hand in both of his own, and was looking at him with a question on his face. “Who’s that for?”

“Ah-” Harry sputtered, “It’s- er. Well, it’s...I-shit, Draco, I told you not to come in!” he snapped, feeling like a total prat. He couldn’t even surprise him correctly.

“Oh, dear.” Draco’s face clouded with understanding. “Did I ruin a surprise?”

Despite his grumpiness and insecurity, Harry’s heart melted a little at the worry on Draco’s face. He sighed and rubbed at his eyes with his free (shaking) hand, and squeezed Draco’s a little tighter with the other. “No, you’re just getting it early,I suppose. Couldn’t wait, could you?”

Draco laughed a little and kissed his cheek, murmuring, “I was lonely without you. And bored. And curious.”

“Of course you were,” Harry grumbled, heart racing out of nervousness and affection. “Well. Merry Christmas, you miserable bugger.”

Draco laughed again and pulled him over to the bed, abandoning Harry’s hands to snatch up the scarf. Immediately, he hummed in approval. “It’s warm.”

“I put a Warming charm on it for you. If you cast your own over it, it doubles the strength for a while. But my charm should be strong enough to keep it always that warm, at least.” 

Draco was hardly listening, because the scarf was doing something particular. It was changing color in his hands. He looked up in surprise, and Harry breathed a little sigh of relief to see that his other Charm wasn’t a fluke. “Put it on,” he said by way of explanation. When Draco did so, the scarf quickly turned a deep blue with silvery specks, perfectly accenting his dark grey jumper.

“That’s a neat bit of spell work.” He was smiling quietly, still studying the scarf intently, and Harry found his heart lifting a little bit. Not bad at all.

“Where’d you get it?”

“Where did I- what?”

“Where did you find something like this? I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“Oh!” Harry found himself squirming a little, unsure of how to proceed. He thought the quality would have seemed obvious. “I made it.”

“Oh, come off it.”

“No, really- I made it.”

“Harry.” Draco pulled a face. “I have been living with you for 3 years. You don’t knit.”

“What, I can’t have hobbies?” Harry was indignant. “If you think it’s stupid-”

“No, that’s not it at all. I just- when did you learn? Don’t you think I would have noticed if you learned how to do something this-” he grabbed the end of the scarf and gestured wildly with it- “complicated?!” 

Harry realized that Draco wasn’t trying to belittle him; he was staring at Harry with an expression of pure bafflement that Harry found distinctly adorable. Resisting the urge to smile, he cleared his throat and tried to explain.

“It’s actually pretty easy, when you get a feel for it. It’s just a matter of finding a rhythm.” With some chagrin, he realized he sounded like Hermione. He shrugged weakly.

“Did you use magic?”

“No,Hermione taught me the Muggle way.”

“When have you been working on this?” Draco demanded.

“When you’re at work. When I get coffee with Hermione. And when things get- difficult.” Harry looked down at his hands, which were not reacting well to the cold or his previous angst and were trembling lightly at his sides. 

Draco didn’t say anything, but he could feel the searching look now sweeping his face. 

“It helps me focus,” Harry said quietly, “when I start to- you know.” 

He looked up to see a look of tenderness and protectiveness on Draco’s face. He did know, better than anyone else. Draco had become accustomed to the panic attacks, the night terrors, all the tremors and aches and failures of Harry’s body and he had done so with grace and patience. Harry didn’t understand Draco’s love for him most of the time, but it was one of the only things he let himself accept without guilt. Of course he knew.

The steady grey gaze Harry loved was soft and searching. “I had thought you were doing a little better,” Draco said carefully.

“Yeah. Well, now you know. I’m a knitter.” He ended up saying this more declaratively than he intended, and felt distinctly awkward until Draco snorted with laughter. Harry was glad to see him looking less solemn, even if it was because he was being stupid.

“You prat. Only you could make yarn work sound indecent,” Draco chuckled, shaking his head. Harry opened his mouth to defend himself, but Draco was not paying attention. Instead, he studied the scarf again closely, running his fingers over the lumpy ribbing and focusing on the stitchwork. 

“I know it’s not much,” Harry blurted, feeling embarrassed, “but-”

“Harry, it’s brilliant.” Draco spoke quietly but his smile was enormous. “It’s absolutely brilliant.”

Harry couldn’t stop the small “You really like it?” from escaping, despite his best intentions. A frantic part of him still insisted Draco was being kind, that he couldn’t love something so simple and plain and…. maybe I’m projecting really hard onto this fucking scarf, he realized suddenly. 

When Draco responded by stepping closer and kissing him with wild abandon, he promptly stopped thinking at all. The press of Draco’s smile across his lips was intoxicating, and when they pulled away after a while, both breathless, Harry marveled at Draco’s expression. He was still smiling uncontrollably, the huge goofy grin wiping away the aloofness his sharp features naturally commanded, and Harry thought it might be the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“I still can’t believe you made this. Without magic?”

“Without magic.” 

“It must have been so difficult! How do you get it all to stay put?”

“Well, there’s actually a loose stitch I need to fix. I was looking for my sewing tin, to try fix it.”

“Well, I think It’s perfect. Except-”

Harry’s heart fell for a moment before he noticed that Draco was now smirking mischievously at him. It was a dangerous look, Harry knew from experience, and all he could say was “What? What now?”

“It’s missing something.” Draco said, and before Harry could protest, Draco threw the scarf around his neck so that they were pressed close and entwined together. 

“You’re confusing it,” he weakly protested as half the scarf turned bottle green to match with his black t-shirt.

“No matter, this is much better,” Draco declared, pulled Harry close. “I love you, you knitter.” He waggled his eyebrows and made it sound quite scandalous, and Harry couldn’t help but laugh at his ridiculous boyfriend. Draco planted another kiss on the corner of his mouth and buried his face in Harry’s neck. “I do love you. No one’s made me anything before. Happy Christmas, Harry.”

“I love you, too. Happy Christmas.”

They stayed like that for a moment, quiet and pressed close and wrapped up in the surprisingly well-received scarf, both still grinning like idiots. Draco broke the silence by chuckling, and when Harry looked inquisitively at him, he said, “Wait until I show Molly!”

“Oh lord.” Harry groaned, “She’ll be pleased, but Ron’s never going to let me hear the end of it.”

“Hermione’ll put him in place, I’m sure.”

“You’re probably right. Hey, can I still take you up on that tea?”

“Only if you let me watch you fix the scarf.” Draco waggled his eyebrows again and purred, “I love watching you work with your hands.” 

Harry rolled his eyes and gave him an affectionate shove. “You lech. Will you bring the other presents out with you? I still need to grab my sewing tin.”

Draco unwrapped them from their scarfed embrace and summoned Harry’s present pile out the door with him, while Harry managed to get the tin from its wedged hiding spot. For once wasn’t bothered when his trembling hands made the tin’s contents rattle. It didn’t matter tonight. It was Christmas and he could knit and Draco loved him and he was quite pleased with the entire world.

When he looked up, Draco had already returned to lean against the doorframe, two mugs of tea in hand. Harry’s heart surged with pride to see he had thoroughly cocooned himself in the scarf, which had turned blue again. He was beautiful.

Harry didn’t realize he had said it outloud until Draco replied, “Quite right. I was born to model knitwear.” He gave Harry a wink and waited for him to stand and join him, planting a kiss on his cheek when he did. Following Draco into their cheery lounge, where a fire was crackling in the hearth and the presents were now nestled under the tree, Harry made a mental note to send Hermione his thanks as soon as possible. It was going to be a very happy Christmas after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first oneshot I've written in years, and I had a lot of fun doing it.  
> This was written for C's birthday! Thanks for being such a lovely person, I hope you enjoy the fluff. It's also dedicated to Rose, who is a great beta reader/editor and lets me shout about my feelings for these two dorks.  
> Merry Christmas, friends!


End file.
